Roses Are Red
by Lirillith
Summary: It's Valentine's Day, and Kotetsu, Antonio, and Tomoe, still in high school and still sorting out their relationships, find that exchanging gifts isn't actually clearing up anyone's feelings at all.


Notes: Written for Valentine's Day for the T&B anon meme. Low-key OT3 here. Also, when Tomoe mentions fandom, she's presumably thinking about cons and fanzines, maybe Usenet or mailing lists, though that's not enough of the focus for me to get into detail.

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* * *

Antonio had realized he'd need to start planning for Valentine's sometime around December, when he realized Tomoe and Kotetsu were sticking around. He knew he wanted to give them both something that showed how he felt about them, and Valentine's was a nice, easy-to-remember holiday that applied to both of them, so it wasn't like he'd go all-out for a birthday for one and then have to wait several months to do the same thing for the other. And he didn't know their birthdays yet, so that was another reason to stick to Valentine's.

So he'd have to give them both presents. Equal presents. Something cute and funny, so it wasn't just deadly serious and sappy; but also something with a definite heart theme so it kinda showed that maybe he meant more than friends, a little, not so much that he wanted to steal Tomoe away from Kotetsu or Kotetsu away from Tomoe, even though Tomoe would say there was no stealing involved, but... hearts, yeah. Pink and red things. Stuff like that.

And it couldn't cost an arm and a leg, because he couldn't afford much, and he wasn't stupid enough to shoplift a gift for Tomoe Amamiya. Or the aspiring hero, but he was pretty sure Tomoe would make him suffer a lot longer than Kotetsu would if he ever committed any crimes and she found out.

So once the Valentine's Day stuff went on sale, he started skulking around the seasonal aisles, a little embarrassed, scoping out the options. It didn't take long to figure out the perfect choices; there were little Valentine's hearts, probably big enough for half a dozen candies or so, with cartoon drawings of heroes on the fronts. There was a Mr. Legend, giving a big thumbs-up (literally big, his cartoon hand was as big as his cartoon head) with a comic-book speech bubble, saying "Valentine, you're LEGENDARY!" Legendary was in big yellow letters outlined in black. The Gray Ghost, with his fedora, saying "Valentine, I take my hat off to you!" even though he wasn't actually taking off his hat in the drawing. The Bird of Paradise, bent over to show off her cartoon cleavage and blowing a kiss, saying "You make my heart SOAR!" The Purple Panther saying "Valentine, you're PURR-fect." And so on.

The choice for Kotetsu was obvious. He freaking worshiped Legend. For Tomoe it was a little harder. She was nuts about Legend, too, but he didn't want to give her the same thing he did Kotetsu, and he knew Kotetsu wouldn't be happy with anyone else. Tomoe liked more of the heroes; she seemed to think Legend and the Gray Ghost were getting it on, which seemed kind of unlikely to Antonio, but... interesting. And she'd been pretty amped about the Purple Panther's rookie season, which gave them something in common.

Antonio wasn't a fanatic like they were - he mostly watched Hero TV because they did - but the Panther was hot as hell. Tomoe liked her more because she was a woman who was actually getting some attention paid to her two black belts (in tae kwon do and karate) and her ranking, not just her boobs or her legs. Antonio privately thought that was because her boobs were pretty easy to notice all on their own - you didn't really need to have anyone bring them up for you - but he never said that.

So he could go with either one for Tomoe. And he had a little sister and a little brother at home, so it was way too risky to buy the gifts early; he had plenty of time to decide what to get her.

* * *

Tomoe could really have lived with better timing for Valentine's. Then again, it happened every year at the same time, so maybe what she really wanted was better timing for Kotetsu and Antonio. She'd known Kotetsu for a while, sure, but they'd only just started being friends in the last couple of months, and she hadn't known Antonio at all; he didn't take any honors classes, unlike Kotetsu, so he'd always just been that giant kid who was kind of a thug, until this past winter.

And Kotetsu liked her, which made everything really awkward. He probably thought she couldn't tell, because he could be pretty dense - but come on. He might be bad at memorizing things, but one time when he was asking her for help with his geometry homework he acted like he didn't know the formula for the area of a triangle. He wasn't that stupid. He was doing it to get her attention, to spend time with her.

And sure, okay, he was really cute, and he made her laugh, and he had this amazing smile, and he liked heroes for all the right reasons... but that was the whole problem! Giving him a valentine because she actually liked him was scary, because she did really like him, and giving him a valentine and insisting it wasn't because she liked him could backfire, because what if he believed her and went and found somebody else to like?

And then there was Antonio. He was such a nice guy, and the last thing she wanted was to make him feel like a third wheel - fifth wheel, that was the saying, even though there were only three of them - especially since it kind of seemed like he needed some friends who didn't run around committing felonies all the time for no good reason at all. And being friends with Kotetsu seemed to really mean a lot to him.

An awful lot. So much that sometimes she thought maybe he was interested in Kotetsu, like, interested, but then maybe she was just a crazy fangirl acting like they were Mr. Legend and the Gray Ghost. Not that it was as obvious as it was with the two of them, at least if you asked her, and it wasn't so much wishful thinking - Antonio was pretty cute too, but it was just weird to ship two of your friends the way you would a couple of famous people, or fictional characters - but she was probably wearing shipping goggles. Or maybe that was just how Antonio acted with his friends, because sometimes she thought he was interested in her, too.

So that was another problem, really, at least potentially. Antonio was pretty cute too - he had a nice butt, as Emi had pointed out repeatedly - and he was a really nice guy. She didn't want to make things all confusing. Maybe it would be better not to give anybody anything for Valentine's.

But she should probably be prepared. Just in case one of them surprised her with a Valentine. The question was what to do now that they were out of elementary school. Last year she and her friends had joked around with conversation hearts; Emi had brought a whole bag and they'd been passing them around and giggling at the lab tables in chemistry, and then in history when Mrs. Nguyen wasn't paying attention Melissa bounced a "Wuv you" heart off of Tomoe's head and it had all been covert heart warfare for the rest of the day. The year before she'd been class representative for the first time, and taking it even more seriously than she did this year, so she'd given everybody in her homeroom a little cluster of chocolate kisses and a personalized note. Ugh, she didn't want to do all the handwritten notes again... but that'd solve her problem. Do those for homeroom and then a little something extra for Kotetsu's (since he was in her homeroom) and Antonio's.

And then Kotetsu would be all "hey, she gave me a KISS for Valentine's, heh heh heh," and people who never even talked to him would listen to that, and she'd spend the next week saying (eventually yelling) NOT THAT KIND OF KISS to everyone, probably even including teachers, and then she'd murder Kotetsu and it'd just be a big mess.

This holiday needed to be a lot more platonic. Why didn't they make chocolate handshakes?

* * *

"Don't forget today's Valentine's Day!" Kotetsu's mother called after him as he left the kitchen. Kotetsu rolled his eyes a little. She reminded him on the day of? What did she expect him to do if he _had_ forgotten, buy something on the way to school? It wasn't like they lived in the middle of a city, just down the block from all kinds of stores.

"I know, Ma!" he said instead, sitting down to pull on his shoes. Of course he knew. This year, in particular, there was no way he'd forget; this year he had actual friends, people who'd talk to him even outside of school, who spent time with him even on the weekends sometimes.

This year he had Tomoe and Antonio.

Not that he knew exactly how they fit together with Valentine's Day. This wasn't like grade school, decorating paper bags so everyone could give everyone else a valentine, at least in theory (in fifth grade, he'd gotten three, from kids who'd apparently missed the memo that he was untouchable, and in sixth grade none at all, because word had gotten around.) Now it was all voluntary, which had suited him just fine for several years, because he could just try to pretend it wasn't happening and he totally didn't care that no one was giving him anything. Now, though, when he actually had people to give things to who might also give him things, it could potentially be better... potentially. Right now it was just kind of absolutely terrifying.

He knew how he'd like it to go. He'd give Tomoe a flower or something, a whole bunch of flowers, maybe some chocolates in a really nice box instead of one of the ones he could actually afford. And he'd say something really cool and romantic about how he felt about her and stuff, and not trip over his own tongue or call her Four-eyes or Pigtails or Tomogotchi - it'd be easier not to keep nicknaming her if she didn't get so pissed off about nicknames - and she'd finally admit that the only reason she picked on him all the time was that she was totally into him. And also he'd magically know whether he ought to get Antonio anything, and he'd stop being so nervous when he thought about whether he ought to, and how Antonio would take it, and for that matter about how exactly he meant it.

But it was okay! He was prepared! He had a bag of those gross candy hearts with messages on them in his backpack, and a couple of bigger chocolate hearts, and a stuffed animal - which was probably supposed be a leopard or something but might, if you were really optimistic, be a tiger - holding a felt heart that said "I'm wild about you." He thought that was a pretty awesome idea, especially if the animal was a tiger, because it showed that he liked her idea for his hero name, and it told her he liked her, without being too mushy or obvious or anything like that. And if she got upset about the idea of him liking her, he could always play it off as just being about his hero name.

And one of the chocolate hearts could be for Antonio, maybe, if Antonio wanted a chocolate heart. A chocolate heart from him, anyway. Or just in general. Antonio claimed not to like sweets much, like it wasn't macho or something, though he made an exception for his grandma's tres leches cake, which was totally reasonable because that thing probably tasted better than sex. Well, better than sex felt. Not that Kotetsu would know. But it was really good cake.

Maybe Antonio would give him a slice of that cake for Valentine's. That'd be awesome.

Anyway, he was ready. He was totally prepared. And not nervous! It was going to be a really good day! Cake or no cake.

* * *

Tomoe was waiting in front of the school when Antonio got there. He was pretty sure he wasn't really running late, so she must be early. She looked kind of nervous and fidgety, and she was wearing her hair in pigtails again. It'd been a while since she did that; she'd stopped so Kotetsu couldn't call her "Pigtails" anymore, but there it was, in two braids, one of which she kept winding and unwinding around her index finger. She looked really cute that way (normally, when she wasn't this nervous) but it was kind of out of nowhere.

"Hey, Tomoe," he greeted her, a lot more diffidently than he usually did, intensely aware of the little heart-shaped box in his backpack with the Purple Panther on the lid and some probably-really-pretty-gross chocolates inside.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. "Antonio! Hi!" she managed, her voice sounding high-pitched and a little artificial. "I didn't see you come up!"

"I kinda figured," he said. "You okay? You seem, um..."

"I'm fine!" she blurted. "Totally fine!"

"Okay, uh, good." Getting his backpack where he could open it seemed completely impossible all of a sudden. "Um," he said. "Did you get him anything?"

"What? Who? Him?"

"You know who I mean."

"No I don't! Who are you talking about?"

Seriously? She sounded pretty sincere. "Kotetsu!"

"What, is he here?" She looked around furtively. "No, I didn't get him anything. Why would I get him anything?"

"Because..." Was she nuts, or was it all him? "Um, because it's Valentine's?"

"So? Why should I get him something for Valentine's?"

Well that was his opening. "Because you like him? He's your friend?" She'd opened her mouth to object at the first sentence. "I mean I got you something."

"You did?" The braid uncoiled from around her finger.

"Yeah." He swung his backpack around to his front and opened up the main pack. Box. There it was. Still wrapped in plastic. Shit, was there a price tag he ought to remove? Too late now, really. He pulled it out and held it out to her. Her eyes widened, and she looked from it, to him, and back to it, then his face again, like she was waiting for one of them to change. "Um," he said, no longer at all sure why he'd thought this was a good idea. "Happy Valentine's Day."

That seemed to unfreeze her. "Oh my gosh, Antonio, thank you! You are so sweet!" She took the box from him, then, to his mingled excitement and alarm, got in close to him, so close he could smell her perfume or shampoo or something - she smelled kind of like vanilla - and then oh god she wasn't stopping. He closed his eyes, kind of petrified, this was working way better than he'd thought it would. And then she kissed him on the cheek. Okay, maybe not that much better than he'd expected. About on par. Holy crap she'd kissed him on the cheek though! His face felt a little like it was on fire. She was still close enough he could smell vanilla, though, and she was smiling at him.

"It, uh, y'know, Valentine's," he mumbled. Should he try to kiss her? Like right now? Was she staying this close for a reason?

"I got you something too, but it's stashed in my locker," she said. She pulled back, which was a little disappointing but probably better for his overall health and not walking into school with a boner. "I'll give it to you at lunch, okay?"

This kind of sounded like having sex somewhere - he'd heard implausible stories about the band room - but realistically, this was Tomoe. She joked about sex just like everybody else but he was pretty sure she'd never ever do it in the band room. She'd literally gotten him a gift, like candy or something. "Okay," he agreed dazedly.

"Okay," she said. "Um, lunchtime! I'll see you then!" She hesitated a moment, like he was supposed to do something other than nod stupidly at her, and then she turned around and fled inside the school.

* * *

Tomoe navigated on auto-pilot through the school's front doors, the big entrance hall with the trophy case and the auditorium entrance, past the hallway with the library side entrance, and to her locker before she realized she was still holding the heart. She snapped out of her daze with a start; she hadn't run into anybody, had she? Just Antonio. Antonio had given her a candy heart, holy crap! She'd been so focused on Kotetsu she'd never thought Antonio had, like, feelings for her; she'd thought he might have a tiny thing for her, but not an honest-to-god valentine-giving-sized thing. And she hadn't really expected herself to react the way she did. Jeez, she'd nearly kissed him, right in front of the school. What was she going to do now?

She was going to lower her backpack to the floor and take a look at the heart, that's what.

When she did, she almost said "Aww" out loud. She heard herself laugh a little, surprised and touched. It was a little heart-box with a cartoon drawing of the Purple Panther, Tomoe's favorite rookie, on the front. She was standing with her hands on her hips, saying "Valentine, you're purr-fect." There was something like paper on the back; she turned it over and saw he'd taped something with her name on it to the back of the heart. An envelope, with something brighter-colored visible through the cheap paper. She picked at the tape with her fingernail, trying to get the little envelope free without tearing anything.

When she finally got it loose, she found she'd guessed right; it was one of those simple little envelopes for kids' valentines. Inside was a Mr. Legend card: "You're my hero!" he was saying. Antonio had filled in the to and from spaces on the front. She turned it over, and on the back, he'd written "Maybe I should of gotten you GG."Should have, Antonio! she corrected automatically, but she was still beaming at the card.

She was really, really glad she'd done safety Valentines, now. Good ones - Antonio deserved a good one, definitely, no matter what the aftermath of that was going to be like. All this because she'd been lying in wait for Kotetsu. She opened her locker, just to check on her Valentine container on the upper shelf. Maybe she should take one of the cards into the library and write it out for him. It might take her a while to figure out the right message. If she hid it in a notebook...

"Yo, Tomoe."

Kotetsu was standing by her locker, leaning one elbow against the locker next to hers in a pose he clearly thought was really smooth and awesome. She didn't care whether it was or not; she squawked and slammed the locker shut. He blinked, then his expression shifted into kind of a smirk, like he thought he was on to her. "What's in your locker I'm not supposed to see, hmm?"

"Nothing!"

"Oh really."

"Nothing for you," she amended. "What are you doing here? You're always late for school."

"I decided to get here early this time. Because it's a special occasion."

"It's Kotetsu-Kaburagi-actually-caring-about-school Day."

"It's Valentine's Day! Jeez!"

"Oh? Is it? I guess I forgot."

"No you didn't. You've got a heart right there on top of your backpack."

"What?! I-" Oh no. She actually did. She hadn't tucked it away anywhere. "That's... not mine!"

"Whose is it, then?"

"It's- I mean-" He bent down to try to reach for it and she smacked the top of his head with her spiral. "Leave my things alone!"

"So it is yours!"

"Shut up," she spluttered. Boys sucked and she hated all of them. Including Antonio. It was his fault she was in this position.

"So did someone give it to you or are you giving it to someone?"

Aaaaargh. "Someone gave it to me..." She wasn't too distracted by her own wrath to notice that he looked kind of... hurt. She felt herself softening and tried to resist. "Antonio," she said. Okay, she shouldn't have resisted that hard, because he definitely looked hurt now. "It's... look, it's really cute, it's a Purple Panther valentine," she said, picking it up to show him. She wasn't hiding it, he was just too nosy, that was all. It wasn't like she and Antonio had some torrid secret affair going on and they were shutting him out. It was a cartoon hero valentine - it wasn't like he was asking her to marry him.

"Heh, yeah," he agreed, but he barely glanced at it. He sounded really subdued. Depressed.

"Totally surprised me," she continued, anyway. "I wasn't expecting to see him at school this early at all, let alone get a valentine from him."

"Yeah, he's... surprising. Sometimes."

"So why did you come to school early?"

"Oh, just, uh... woke up early today for some reason."

Liar. He'd gotten here early for some reason that had to do with Valentine's Day. Did he have a gift he wanted to give her? Or... give somebody else? Did she want to talk him into giving her a gift, or at least admitting he'd wanted to do something valentine-related? Or was it better just to pretend nothing had happened and keep things as much like they'd always been as possible?

"I thought you said it was because of Valentine's Day."

"No, I just said today is Valentine's."

"No you didn't. You said it was a special occasion when I asked you why."

"Oh. Dammit."

"So... did you have somebody you wanted to give a valentine to?"

He shook his head. "Thought I did, but turns out she's with somebody else."

"Oh for God's sake Kotetsu, we're not dating! He gave me a cute valentine! I've given cute valentines to tons of my friends! Are you just going to pout all day?"

"Yes I am!" he retorted. She glared at him, and he grinned back. Him and his stupid adorable grin. "You win. I got you something," he continued.

"Wait, I- what do you mean I win? I wanted you to stop sulking, not give me things!"

"Well you get both." He shrugged out of his backpack. She glanced up at a group of kids passing through the hallway; juniors, she thought, nobody she really knew. He bent over to rummage through it, finally pulling out a little stuffed animal. He straightened up and held it out to her. It was kind of a gold color with either oval-shaped spots or weirdly thick stripes and a heart saying, "I'm wild about you!"

"Is that...?"

"I think it's a tiger!" he said happily. "Or it could be a leopard. But I want it to be a tiger."

"I guess it'll be a tiger then," she said. "So you like Wild Tiger?"

HIs smile widened, if that was possible. Did he have tears in his eyes? He looked so... so happy and sincere it almost hurt to keep looking at him, and she felt a little misty-eyed too. "I'm glad you like it," she said to the tiger-leopard. She reached to take it from him, and their hands brushed. She looked up at his face again, and he was still looking at her that way.

"You're wearing the pigtails again," he said, because of course he was going to pick the one thing he could say that would make her switch from wanting to tell him how she felt about him to wanting to kill him. "Looks good on you."

She shouldn't murder him on Valentine's Day, especially not when he'd avoided actually calling her "Pigtails." She turned the tiger over in her hands. "Thanks," she said to it, instead.

* * *

Kotetsu hung around for a while. Tomoe seemed to like the tiger-leopard, and she didn't seem any different than before, so if she'd fallen in love with Antonio it'd obviously been a while. She'd _said_ they weren't dating. _Yet,_ he added mentally. But maybe if they weren't dating yet he still had a shot at her? But this really sucked. He didn't want to be in competition with Antonio. And while he really really hated the idea of Tomoe falling in love with Antonio, he hated the idea of Antonio falling in love with Tomoe, too.

So today was actually sucking a whole bunch. He moped off to his own locker eventually, and he dragged himself to math - starting the day with Geometry was like proof he was never meant to be happy - and then history, and then he couldn't take it anymore and hid in the back of the library rather than go to English where he'd see Tomoe. Granted, that meant she'd kill him when she caught him - she hated for him to skip class - but what did it matter? She and Antonio were bound to get together any minute.

Except apparently not right away, because Antonio was huddled back there too. Kotetsu felt his heart sink at the reminder. Tomoe and Antonio liked each other, probably, and he was on his own. No best friends anymore. But it wasn't like he _didn't_ want to be around Antonio, so he slouched over to Antonio's table, slung his backpack onto it, and slid into the chair next to him.

"Hey," Antonio greeted him, with that smile that always made Kotetsu's stomach kind of flip over. "Cutting class again?"

"Yeah, well, not like I'd done the reading. I don't get it. Shakespeare makes sense when people are acting, so how come it's so hard to read?"

"Cause it's in a foreign language disguised as English?"

Kotetsu snickered. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Um, I had something for you," Antonio said, abruptly. Kotetsu looked at him; his brows were knit together like he was pissed off or worried about something, and then he leaned over to get at his backpack. Kotetsu rested an elbow on the table, watching him. Okay, watching the way his arms and shoulders worked as he rummaged through his things. Antonio was built like... somebody really built, which seemed to be all his own doing and not the result of being a NEXT. Maybe he should start working out. Would Tomoe like that? He needed to anyway; heroes shouldn't have ribs that showed.

"So, uh," Antonio said, sitting back up. "Here." He slid the little heart-shaped box across in front of Kotetsu. Mr. Legend, cartoon-version, saying "You're LEGENDARY!" in big block letters. The box was heart-shaped. The box was totally heart-shaped. Kotetsu picked it up, his own heart thudding in his chest. There was something taped to the underside, a note or something; he turned it over to see if he could peel it off. Then he looked up at Antonio, waiting for the laugh, the "no homo, though," the joke. Antonio just looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

"Um," Kotetsu said. "I kinda had something for you, too."

"You did?"

"Yeah, uh," he reached for his backpack, "If you want, I mean." He pulled out the red-foil-wrapped heart and offered it; Antonio's fingers brushed his as he took it. Kotetsu swallowed hard. _Don't leave me,_ he thought. _Either of you._ "I know you always say you don't like sweets, but y'know. Valentine's. It's kinda traditional. It's dark chocolate, I think?"

"Okay," Antonio said softly, staring at the red foil. "I'm not turnin' it down, I mean."

"Okay. Well. Good?" Were they going to need to talk about how they meant these? Hell, Kotetsu wasn't totally sure about how he meant it. Or... no, not that exactly. He knew how he felt about Antonio. But he knew how he felt about Tomoe, too, and he didn't want to give up on Tomoe in favor of Antonio. Or at all. And he didn't want to be some scummy cheater or something, and he was feeling too paralyzed to even reach out and touch him. Antonio was still holding the heart in both hands like he was afraid he'd drop it.

"I gave Tomoe a Valentine, too," Antonio said.

Okay, Kotetsu _knew_ that, but Antonio admitting it was kind of unexpected. "Yeah, I saw it. Are you and her, uh..."

"I... dunno. I mean, you and Tomoe are, like... I can't give her something and not you. Or you and not her." His eyes met Kotetsu's. They'd always been that green, obviously, but Kotetsu couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at them that long. "I can't pick one of you over the other, y'know?"

"Yeah," Kotetsu said. He couldn't seem to look away even though he was pretty sure he ought to. For some reason. He just couldn't think what the reason was. "I know exactly how you mean."

Probably the reason he was supposed to look away was because he was kind of _leaning,_ and so was Antonio, and they were leaning in the general direction of each other. And it wasn't so much that it was a bad idea in general to kiss Antonio, but it was probably a bad idea to kiss him in the library... probably. Maybe. He'd lived through worse ideas, though.

And then he heard a gasp and they both snapped back upright and stared in opposite directions away from each other. After a second, Kotetsu glanced in the general direction of the gasp.

And then the earth opened up and swallowed him and he was never seen or heard from again, because the person who'd gasped was Tomoe, her face bright red, and being buried alive was a way better option than trying to convince her nothing at all had happened and he would still absolutely have her babies if she wanted.

Antonio was the one who broke the silence. "Um," he said.

Tomoe slid into one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table. "I could kick myself," she said. "If I could have just stayed quiet-"

"I'm going to die," Kotetsu said. "Just give me a minute here. It'll solve everything."

"You're not allowed to die," Tomoe said. "I want to actually see you guys kiss sometime." Her face still looked pretty pink, but she was smiling, and not looking at all like she hated him.

"Wait, you- wait. This is like your thing about GG and Legend?"

"He's pretty dense," Antonio said to Tomoe.

"I _know._"

"I mean... like that and not like the thing about Vladimir and Estragon?" For real, and not just a joke the whole class could get in on.

"Yeah," she said. "Kind of. A little. Kotetsu, why were you cutting class?"

"'Cause, um. Reasons. Good reasons."

"Antonio, it's nearly fourth hour. You have a science test, don't you?"

Antonio grimaced. "Yeah. That's why I'm staying put."

"No you don't. Go take the test."

"You're a cruel woman, Tomoe," he said, but he got up and slung his backpack over one shoulder.

"I helped you study, so now you need to go put it into action," she said. "Go prove how awesome I am."

"You been spending too much time with Kotetsu," he said over his shoulder. They both watched him leave; Kotetsu was trying not to watch his ass, not with Tomoe right there, but when he looked at Tomoe he was pretty sure she wasn't making any attempt not to. Okay, well... not like he could blame her.

"Why aren't _you_ in class?" he asked, finally.

"We had a sub, so she just gave us a free reading hour since it was going to be a discussion day if Ms. Komatsu'd been here. So I asked for a library pass because I figured you might be here."

"Okay," he said, not really sure how to say what was actually on his mind, which was something like, _So are we sharing Antonio now or something?_

"Vladimir and Estragon?" she said, her tone now definitely teasing even though she was going kind of pink again. "Is that all you remember from that play?"

Kotetsu thought about it. "Pretty much. I always sort of figured your thing about GG and Legend was a lot the same."

"No, that's, um... a little more complicated, but I, like... okay, you like the idea of two girls making out, right?"

"Depends on the girls... yeah, okay, I see what you're getting at. So, like, me and Antonio...?"

"I didn't think I liked the idea quite that much until, like... five minutes ago?"

"Less than that."

"Yeah." She kind of sighed. "Were you just sulking because you thought I was going to pick Antonio over you or something? Or that he'd pick me over you?"

"It's not like that," he said. It wasn't. How was he supposed to say it? Even thinking about it kind of hurt. "It's... I guess I didn't want you two to abandon me."

"You dumbass," she said fondly. "The only reason he gave me a valentine when he did was because I was waiting out in front of the school so I could jump on you the minute you got there."

"Jump on me? Like..."

"I don't mean like that! Not right in front of the school! You're hopeless!"

"I'm a guy!"

She facepalmed, but that was all pretty normal. Maybe today wasn't going to be as bad as it had been looking for a while. "I wanted to... like... not actually _give_ you a valentine, but strongly imply I was going to, so you'd give _me_ a valentine, and I could see, like, how hard you'd tried on the valentine thing... this is sounding more and more like an evil plot the more I talk about it. It wasn't like you had to _earn_ a valentine. I was definitely giving you something. Eventually. Just... if you got me a candy bar from the vending machine and put a heart sticker on it, you were not getting something homemade."

"You had homemade valentines?"

She pulled her backpack up onto the table. "You're getting the first of these," she said, ceremoniously pulling out a little tupperware container. Inside she had a bunch of things wrapped in foil. She popped the lid open and handed one to him; it was heart-shaped, and felt fairly dense. "It's a brownie," she said.

"I get homemade-"

"It's from a mix! All I did was crack some eggs! It's not like I was slaving away for hours over a hot stove or anything. I mean, it's a really good brownie mix, and I did make it at home, but I don't get credit for making it from scratch."

"It's still awesome," he said. "This is the best thing anyone's ever given me for Valentine's. Or maybe ever." No, getting his first bike had topped it, probably. But he didn't have to say that out loud. Definitely the best thing he'd ever gotten for Valentine's, though.

"But wasn't Antonio's gift cute? What'd he give you?"

"It was a Legend box..."

"Can I see?"

He handed it to her; she immediately turned it over and began peeling a little note off the back. He watched her at it. One of the things he didn't think he'd ever understand as long as he lived was why Tomoe Amamiya so much as gave him the time of day. She was so smart, and so pretty, and people just liked her as soon as they met her. She had lots of friends; she didn't need him. He didn't get it.

"Here," she said. "It's a little valentine card, like a kid's valentine. Open it up, I wanna see what he got you!"

Kotetsu opened it up. Tomoe got up and circled the table to look over his shoulder. It was a card of the Gray Ghost, hand on the brim of his hat, saying "Hats off to you, Valentine!" Tomoe, leaning over his shoulder, chuckled right by his ear. "He was saying maybe he should've gotten me the Gray Ghost," she said. "I think he has a better idea how shipping works than you do."

"Shipping? Your thing about GG and Legend?" He turned his head to look at her, but her face was so close that if he turned it much more he'd practically be kissing her. Maybe that was the idea, he thought. Her lips were shiny, just some kind of lip gloss or something.

"Yeah," she murmured, sounding a little breathy and distracted. He didn't think she was paying attention to what they were saying anymore than he was. Her eyes flickered closed behind her glasses. If he turned his head just a little more-

The bell rang just as their lips touched.

* * *

Tomoe knew Kotetsu would have just ignored the bell outright, but _she_ couldn't, so she had to spring into action - she was pretty sure she hit him in the face with a braid - and blurt an apology and grab her backpack and head out of the library at a walk that was faster than she usually bothered moving in PE. She didn't even stick around to make sure he went to class, but he probably would, without anyone there to keep him company.

Her next class was history. He'd be in Spanish, she thought, assuming he went to class, and Antonio was, hopefully, actually taking that science test. When had she started keeping track of both their schedules? She didn't even know all of Emi's classes, and they'd been friends since second grade.

Of course, she'd never kissed Emi, or almost-kissed Emi. Was that a kiss? It was most of a kiss, at least. Ninety percent of a kiss. She'd never ninety-percent-kissed Emi. Or anybody. Not that she'd been kissing Kotetsu until today, either.

From the way her face and neck felt, she kept blushing and getting over it and re-blushing all through class, but they were no longer in alphabetical order, thank _God,_ so she wasn't right in the front anymore. Maybe no one would notice? That was a stupid thought. She unbraided her hair and brushed it out - Mr. Camacho hated when people did that in the middle of class, but she was usually a good girl and this was a special occasion. With it hanging loose she could hide behind it a little.

Would it be so bad, letting Kotetsu know? He liked her. She knew he liked her. It wasn't like she had to worry about rejection. Just about all kinds of other stuff, like what being in a relationship _meant,_ and sex, and their future, and whether he'd still listen to her and actually work on things like studying and homework if he didn't feel like he needed to impress her, and how Antonio would take it since it seemed like he liked both of them and he'd just told them so _today,_ and whether she could ever talk Kotetsu and Antonio into making out while she watched.

Sure, "threesomes solve everything" was kind of the fandom rallying cry, but having sex with one person at a time was a terrifyingly enormous step. Two was unimaginable.

No, it wasn't. It was extremely easy to _imagine,_ which was a problem all on its own, but then, she imagined having NEXT powers all the time, too, and from things Kotetsu and Antonio had both said, she knew the real thing was a lot more complicated than her daydreams about being a hero.

Mr. Camacho called on her, and she babbled out something about the Enlightenment that was, going by his reaction, moderately satisfactory but kind of off-base, and confirmation that she hadn't been paying full attention. So that at least gave her an excuse for her red face.

She could _not_ keep thinking along these lines. She'd be seeing both guys in... twenty minutes? Time to think about relatively harmless stuff. She'd promised Antonio his valentine at lunch - he'd be getting a brownie heart too - and then in psych/soc, after lunch, she'd be able to give a brownie to Emi. She wouldn't see Melissa and Karin until sixth hour, in math. So she'd be carrying the brownie container around the rest of the day, and passing out smaller chocolates to pretty much everyone she knew.

The truth was, she'd always figured she'd give Kotetsu a brownie, unless he seriously screwed up - and it probably would have taken more than a candy bar with a heart sticker on it. She just hadn't wanted to make it too easy, too obvious, and now she felt bad about that, because if he somehow thought that she and Antonio would both ditch him forever, she was clearly hiding her feelings a little too well. (Of course, Antonio _hadn't_ hidden his too well, so maybe it wasn't all her fault.)

But how did you show feelings without your head exploding? Kotetsu _really_ should not have skipped English. They were reading _Much Ado About Nothing,_ for heaven's sake. Granted, he'd been there the day before, and it hadn't seemed to enlighten him in the least, and she'd been reading the whole thing and it wasn't changing her life either, but you'd think repetition would have some effect. Especially since the situation on the thirteenth hadn't been nearly as relevant as the situation today. She could try to bring it up with him this afternoon, when she helped him study, and _oh god they'd probably kiss again._ He'd certainly at least _try._ Not that that was bad, exactly, but she needed to... to convince him not to skip English so they could get their relationship sorted out, which kissing would do as well. This wasn't as complicated as she'd thought.

Except for the kissing itself. What did you do with your tongue? How had this never come up in all the conversations she'd had about boys through the years?

Oh, and Kotetsu should also stop cutting class just on general principles. There was that, too.

* * *

Antonio wasn't sure how Tomoe - or anyone - could expect him to pay attention to a science test under the circumstances, but since she'd sent him off early, he had some time to lurk around the lockers and try to get his mind back on sciencey crap. And she'd done a good job, all in all; once the test was in front of him, he started actually remembering things she'd made him learn. He actually finished it early, and he was pretty sure he'd passed, maybe even done a good job, so he could tell her that honestly at lunch.

It was kind of funny, the three of them eating lunch together. Antonio, if he was around the school at lunch, used to eat with the friends Tomoe referred to as his "gang," and Kotetsu... Kotetsu ate alone, didn't he? Antonio couldn't remember. Tomoe'd had people she spent time with, though she said none of her best friends were in her lunch hour, but at some point she'd shifted over to eating with them and it just seemed natural now.

She usually brought her lunch, usually in a bag, sometimes in a bento box. Antonio usually went out and ran across the street to buy something - burgers or tacos or Thai takeout - and Kotetsu had gradually, probably because of Tomoe, switched from fast food or vending-machine fare to brown-bagged sandwiches or his own helping of what she brought. Neither of them were in the lunchroom yet when he got there, so he took off to pick up some tacos from the Reyes's place. They knew his mom so he steered clear of there when he was cutting classes, meaning that Tomoe whipping him into shape had an added bonus; he could eat there a lot more often.

When he came back, his bag still too hot to touch on the bottom, Tomoe and Kotetsu were in place, sitting on opposite sides of the table, looking awkward as all hell. Oh boy. Tomoe had dropped the pigtails and had one of her big multi-story bento boxes sitting in front of her, unopened, and Kotetsu had his backpack on his lap, fiddling with something inside it.

They were both looking around - anywhere except at each other - so they saw him well before he got to the table. He lifted a hand in greeting; Kotetsu seemed to brighten. Tomoe was rummaging around in her bag for something now, too. "What's wrong?" he asked, as he got close to the table.

_Awkward,_ Kotetsu mouthed. Antonio pulled out a chair, discarded it at the sight of gum on the seat, and went for a second one. Did Kotetsu mean the question was awkward, or just that he and Tomoe were being awkward? Not like the latter was anything new. Or that hard to figure out after five seconds looking at the two of them. Or maybe he meant it was awkward for Antonio to show up after they'd nearly kissed?

"Nothing!" Tomoe said brightly.

"Yeah, that's what it looks like." Antonio dropped into the seat. "Thanks for kicking my ass into gear, Tomoe. I think I did pretty good on that test."

"Really? That's great, Antonio! I knew you could do it!"

"That makes one of us," he said. Kotetsu slid him a little pink thing; Antonio picked it up from the table. One of those candies that looked like it was made out of chalk, saying "UR GR8." Antonio shot him a look; Kotetsu slid him another, a tiny little heart-shaped air-hockey puck in kind of a sickly green, this time saying "SO FINE."

"Here," Tomoe said, extracting a tupperware thing from her backpack. "I have your valentine for you now."

"Oh, hey, sweet," he said.

"I hope so!" She pried the lid off, and pulled out something wrapped in foil. Then she got up to give it to him, and Kotetsu took the opportunity to flick one of the little hearts into the container. She glanced that way at the sound, but then turned back to ceremoniously deposit a heart-shaped foil something in his hands.

"I made brownies," she said. "From the little bits and pieces left over after I made the heart shapes, they came out pretty well."

"Awesome," he said. "You're gonna make me save it for desert, aren't you?"

"I can't _make_ you do anything..." she said, so naturally he decided, all on his own, to save it for desert. "And I brought an extra-stuffed bento today, but I guess you already have something?"

"Tacos," he said. "We can split those and your stuff."

"I wanna see the bento," Kotetsu said, apparently abandoning awkward in hopes of heart-shaped food to ogle and/or mooch.

"I want to see what you threw at me," she retorted.

"I didn't throw it at you, I threw it into your... thing. Brownie-holding thing."

"Oh, that's where it went?" She peeked inside, then grinned. "Are you using the ones with letters instead of words just to torment me?"

"Let me see," Antonio said, and she passed him the heart - "U R A 10" - while Kotetsu protested his innocence. "I wanna see the bag," he said, interrupting their argument. Sure, that was how they flirted, but they had all kinds of time to flirt.

"Okay, okay, everyone gets to see everything, jeez," she said, and started dismantling her bento, lid to one side, first box and second box on the table. Rice - how'd she get it to be pink? - molded into a couple of heart shapes, topped with veggies or something also cut into heart shapes. Cheese hearts with ham hearts on top. A couple little heart sandwiches. Veggies, most of them not heart-shaped, though she'd managed to find pinkish carrots somewhere.

"That's so _cute,_" Kotetsu said, sounding awestruck.

"How many heart cookie cutters do you have?" Antonio asked.

"Like four? My sister insisted on using one for cookies though. They're all in the dishwasher now."

"I bet," he said, helpfully smacking Kotetsu's hand as Kotetsu reached for... something.

"I brought extra chopsticks," she said. "Just in case."

"Oh, right, and here's the candy bag," Kotetsu said, shoving it to the center of the table. A few hearts spilled out of it as he did; "CALL ME" and "MY BABY" and "LUV U." Antonio snagged "LUV U" and bounced it off Kotetsu's head, lightly.

"OW, what the hell? I think he shot me!" Kotetsu clutched at the side of his head. "Why aren't you playing varsity baseball, asshole?"

"'Cause it's not a real sport," Antonio said. "Soccer's my game and you know it."

"I think I have a concussion," Kotetsu said. "What are the signs? I lost my memory. Who am I?"

"That's not one of the signs," Tomoe said, grinning.

"It's not? Oh, it's all coming back to me now."

Antonio could never decide if Kotetsu did this just because he was a drama queen by nature, or because it made Tomoe laugh, but either way, it worked; by the time he'd recovered from the fatal candy, Tomoe was giggling, Antonio was grinning, and the awkwardness was dispelled. Antonio found a "SEXY" heart to pass to Tomoe, which made her giggle too, and a "BE MINE" for Kotetsu. Kotetsu stole an entire rice heart and gave Tomoe a "ME + YOU" heart in exchange, and a "YOUR GUY" to Antonio. Antonio passed Kotetsu "LET'S KISS," and Kotetsu flushed a little and looked away and then passed Antonio "CALL ME." Antonio tucked that one in his pocket and snagged one of the ham-and-cheese hearts with his chopsticks.

Tomoe pushed a "UR A TIGER" at Kotetsu, which made him burst out into that wide, slow-growing grin that always made Antonio kind of weak in the knees; judging by the look on Tomoe's face, she had about the same reaction to it. She pushed another at him: "BE MY HERO," Antonio read, upside down, then "HEART OF GOLD." Antonio fished a handful out of the bag: "MY MAN" for Kotetsu, "CLASS ACT" and "KISS ME" and "WHIZ KID" for Tomoe. "UR A CHAMP" for Kotetsu, and "THAT SMILE." "LOVE HIM" for Tomoe. She read that one and flashed him a smile; then she passed that one to Kotetsu in a group of others. Then she busied herself with grabbing food from her depleted bento while Kotetsu read his latest batch of hearts.

Antonio reached into his bag; three tacos. He wouldn't need them all with Tomoe's bento padding out his lunch, so he pulled out the paper-wrapped bundles and passed one to Kotetsu and one to Tomoe. "3 U" came his way, and "TWO HEARTS" and "CUTIE PIE," from Tomoe, joining the group of hearts dished out from Kotetsu's side: "HUG ME" and "XOXO" and "I HOPE."

Antonio grabbed some broccoli from Tomoe's bento, mostly because that always made her happy too - eating healthy junk - and watched Kotetsu systematically devouring his taco while Tomoe sorted hearts. None of them were looking at each other directly, they were barely talking right now, and Antonio was still pretty sure this was about the most perfect way possible for this Valentine's to turn out.


End file.
